NYC - Press Releases

Four Convenient myths about the National Youth Service proposal
With increasing attempts to stir up alarm regarding the proposal for a National Youth Service, National Youth Commission Acting Chief Executive Officer PAUL JOHNSON argues it is important for youth to understand the difference between what the National Youth Policy actually says and the sensational interpretations provided by expedient politicians.
When the 167 delegates to last November's 2nd National Youth Summit overwhelmingly concluded that National Youth Service ought to be a key programme arising out of the National Youth Policy, they presented the National Youth Commission with the awesome responsibility of ensuring the idea became a reality for South African youth.
Through the facilitation of a National Youth Service Technical Task Team - consisting of seven senior, recognised experts in the areas of national service, voluntarism and youth development - the NYC has just begun the process of converting the baseline recommendations of the policy into a practical, workable recommendation to government. Yet even now, despite the overwhelming party-political accordance achieved at the Summit, inflammatory misrepresentations of National Service and its implications are already being introduced - somewhat prematurely it has to be said - into the public discourse.
Whilst issues of detail require further investigation and debate via the Task Team process, the National Youth Policy does set a clear direction and rationale for the design and implementation of a National Youth Service programme. In the face of the paper tigers being set up for political PR pay-offs, it is clear that ensuring the public integrity of the process and the proposal as it unfolds, requires both a reaffirmation of its goals and intentions and a firm debunking of the convenient myths regarding it. Of these, four crudities have become particularly common and need to be rejected emphatically:

"National Youth Service is slave labour in service of reconstruction and development" - National Youth Service is unashamedly first and foremost about youth development - for all youth. The policy does indeed see national service as a useful component in national development in that the skills and capacities of young women and men can be employed on projects and activities which promote development in South Africa, but it also identifies the programme as an invaluable opportunity for young people to gain new experiences and develop new skills which will benefit them later in life. The National Youth Policy unashamedly seeks to create an enabling environment within which youth can thrive and develop and National Youth Service is clearly one of the programmatic initiatives within which this can be the case, particularly for those historically disadvantaged young women and men for whom opportunities have been few and far between. If we take the example of the thousands of youth who have left school without matriculating; or have matriculated or graduated without immediate career prospects, it is easier to understand the important benefits of a well-structured National Youth Service. The programme could provide work and educational opportunities to those young men and women who are no longer at school and who are unemployed. Through an appropriately-designed national service programme, they can be re-integrated into society through a skills development and work experience programme which is nationally accredited and youth-focussed.

"National Youth Service targets graduates" - This recent hysteria is of course politically understandable nonsense. National Youth Service as clearly represented in the National Youth Policy is intended for all youth. A key principle of consensus at the National Youth Summit was that National Youth Service should be inclusive of all young people, regardless of race, sex, or geographical location. Graduates of higher education are only mentioned as a special category in the policy in recognition of particular needs, circumstances and contexts that need to be taken into account when considering service as applied to this group. The programme's intention is as much to benefit graduates with accredited experience in their fields as it is about building a culture of constructive contribution amongst youth. In this regard, the design of the programme ought to be sensitive to balancing social responsibility requirements with incentives, which could include linking it to financial support for education and the academic accreditation of service. In this way, service can be linked to career development in a valuable way that advantages both youth in service and the communities who benefit from it. One of the clear principles of the proposal for service is that it be linked to pre-existing career-oriented courses. Account clearly then needs to be taken of the many career courses which already have in-built community service modules. The intention of the National Service initiative will be to incorporate these where they exist, initiate or expand these where they don't and ensure the attachment of appropriate accreditation weight in terms of negotiated arrangements within the framework of national service. There is no brief for the programme to be cumbersome, redundant or duplicated in what it seeks to achieve in this regard. The issue of a graduate tax is indeed on the table but the National Youth Commission will, as in all such instances, be guided by the feasibility recommendations which will emerge from our technical teams in this regard. Whatever the outcome on this issue, there can be no doubt that pursuing its viability is an overwhelming mandate of our national consultation process which we have a responsibility to carry through. Some people may not like the idea, but the weight of submissions from national youth organisations suggests an overwhelming majority who feel otherwise on this matter.

"There is no support for National Service amongst youth" - In his speech opening Parliament, President Mandela was absolutely correct in saying "the youth of our country" have proposed the notion of national service. The proposal as set out in the Youth Policy was overwhelmingly agreed to by the 167 delegates - representing every conceivable national youth organisation - to last November's 2nd National Youth Summit, which ratified the draft National Youth Policy. Indeed, in the consultation process leading up to the final National Youth Summit last November, national service for all youth was the one strongly felt proposal that came up consistently in all provinces from the widest range of youth organisations. The NYC is, in this regard, the agent of an overwhelming and legitimate mandate. It's worth noting that throughout the process of 9 provincial summits, 2 national summits, 27 youth hearings and 9 sectoral workshops, only one objection to National Youth Service - that of the Freedom Front Youth - was recorded. Additionally, a number of NGO's have been successfully active in this area of work for a long time (e.g. the Joint Enrichment Project and the South African Students Volunteers). For many in the youth development field, National Youth Service is an idea whose time has come. The country needs to be clear that the concept of National Youth Service was not the result of an office-based conspiracy at the NYC, but the product of a transparent eight-month consultation process involving representatives of over 250 000 youth. Any thinking therefore that equates an attack on National Service as an attack on the NYC is confused in the extreme.

"The proposal for National Youth Service in the policy is incomplete" - Of course it is! The National Youth Policy states quite clearly that the process needs to be taken forward via a National Youth Service Technical Task Team which will develop a proposal giving specific attention to the following: purpose and structure of the programme; its relationship to the National Qualifications Framework and existing curricula; comparative international models; target groups; types of service opportunities provided (e.g. heritage restoration, environment protection, community development); financing options, including the mobilisation of private sector finances; organisational and management arrangements; and proposed time frames and pilot projects. This is the process underway at the moment. What the Policy does provide is clear foundation principles for the youth service programme. These are: inclusion of all young people, regardless of race, sex, or geographical location; promotion of a common sense of nationhood; promotion of reconstruction and development; linkage of community service and internships to career-oriented studies; accreditation within the National Qualifications Framework (NQF); functional linkage to the national skills development strategy and national strategy for economic growth; incorporation of public and private sector, as well as civil society resources; special emphasis to rural development projects; links to financial support for education; and a balancing of compulsory and incentive measures to encourage young people into the programme;

The foundations for a National Youth Service ultimately lay in the reality of the experiences and expectations of the majority of our youth. The fact that some commentators are already starting to reject the notion ahead of a clearly delineated, practical proposal reveals more about their socio-political location than it does about the very real needs of the majority of our country's youth. The National Youth Service guide principles, like the National Youth Policy, is very clear in balancing the rights and opportunities necessary for youth to thrive with the obligations and responsibilities they have for our society to thrive. It is an unmistakable irony that some of the very people who are already beginning to raise the spectre of that emphasis on contribution are the same ones so quick to bemoan the perceived entitlement mentality and lack of responsibility of youth in other instances. It will be unfortunate if the issues regarding this country's pressing need for a comprehensive national youth development programme are to become subjected to the exigencies of party-politicking, since the only losers will be the youth of South Africa - who have spoken clearly on this matter.